The decision to drastically upgrade the football schedule sits just fine with UConn coach Randy Edsall. The games have to be played at some point, so why not schedule them early?

This year, it means the Huskies don’t have the benefit of wading into things. Sheer circumstance dictates that the Huskies jump straight into the deep end of the pool without much ability to first learn to float.

When this season’s schedule was put together a while back, Edsall had no idea today’s opponent at Rentschler Field, North Carolina (1-0), would be ranked No. 19 in the country. He could never have predicted that next week’s foe, Baylor, is rapidly rising from the bottom rung of the Football Bowl Subdivision.

Even if his crystal ball had been working, he wouldn’t have done anything differently.

“I don’t have any issue with what we’re doing,” Edsall said. “Our philosophy is, we’re going to try to play our nonconference games before we play our Big East games. That will help to prepare us for the Big East and playing the people that we play.

“We have to line up and play them whenever we play them. It’s a tough game, and you just have to go and play them.”

As home openers go, nobody in his right mind would argue that this is a bad one (though it’s difficult to explain the number of tickets still remaining unsold). The last few years have given us a steady diet of low-level FBS teams or Football Championship Subdivision squads.

UConn is certainly not easing into the season. Last week’s game at Ohio, at least a good Mid-American Conference team, proved to be no picnic. The largest crowd in Peden Stadium history turned out. Still, it didn’t tell us much about the Huskies (1-0) other than that they have a lot of work to do.

Today’s game will be a much better barometer. Better to go against one of the best early and discover something than schedule an easy one and still have questions.

“I think it’s great,” said linebacker Scott Lutrus, whose status is questionable because of a stinger, “especially with a ranked team. The students and the crowd will be very into it. It’s great for us to come into our home opener all fired up. There’s only been a few times we’ve had a ranked team come into Rentschler. It’s a lot easier having a home crowd behind you in these tough games.

“It’s great to be playing a ranked team this early in the season at home.”

UConn had all sorts of trouble with much the same North Carolina team last year in Chapel Hill, N.C.

The Huskies took home a 38-12 loss that was brutal not for the score but for how the score came about. Bruce Carter blocked three punts for the Tar Heels, one of which resulted in a touchdown. Quarterback Zach Frazer was intercepted three times and one of those was returned for a touchdown.

Donald Brown ran for 161 yards, and the Huskies easily outgained the Tar Heels overall. In fact, UConn won just about every statistical category except the all-important turnover battle. The Huskies can at least take that knowledge, and some knowledge of what they’ll see, into today’s game.

North Carolina can’t say the same. It has seen Frazer, but it hasn’t seen the retooled passing game. Not many have, for that matter.

“The challenge their offense poses is they added some wrinkles they didn’t have last year,” North Carolina coach Butch Davis said. “It’s a significantly different challenge.”

As is this game at this time for UConn.

You have to go back to 2002 to find such a quality opponent in the second week of the season. That was when Georgia Tech made a trip to Memorial Stadium and eased past the Huskies. That game helped, at least momentarily, as UConn won two straight. Later in the year, they won four in a row, including a whipping of Iowa State on the road.

It’s hardly a stretch to say that this one will help UConn far more than would playing, say, Maine in week two.

“I hope we get better from each game to another all the way through the season,” Edsall said. “You can make a jump between game one and game two. Now they’ve played a game and they can go out there and get some of the jitters out. That isn’t always the case, either.

“I want to see improvement each week. To me, it’s a build-up. You start with game one and work to get better each game all the way through the line.”

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